The Sentinels come to my arms, my beamish boy!

caligula watches. he is very good at watching. settled comfortably into the darkness, he sees the grey figure’s head move, the single step taken in his direction. it is pure instinct that causes him to freeze, that causes the silvery hairs at the naps of his neck to bristle like spines, but when the other begins to speak he settles back down, the wire-tight tension looping through his limbs relaxing like a bowstring finally loosed – still present, simply not at the edge of snapping.

yet caligula still watches her, hawklike, as she speaks. “no, i do not expect…” he starts, voice still a slow and hesitant thing; yet she takes another step forward, another step to him, and caligula’s voice halts as though forcibly stopped in his throat.

he lingers there, ghost-like, for another silent moment, sides not so much as trembling with breath. but when she speaks again, it is not with an accompanying movement, and caligula forces his voice back into working. “as i – i do not expect anyone would want to. it…the forest burned here, but i do not know why.”

caligula is not so familiar with fire beyond its effects, besides the ache in his lungs from the smoke and the smell that clings to fur for days, no matter how long you might spend in the stream to wash it free. he leaves it at that.

“a traveler,” caligula considers, at length. “…yes. i am something like that.” it sounds better than exile; it means less than exile, and it is simpler to frame in those terms. more comfortable.

his voice hangs in the rain, and for a moment caligula shifts, eager to move away. it is a different voice in the back of his head that stops him; a memory, though of course his only friend is not here. this does not stop him from knowing exactly what she would say, seeing him flee from such an innocuous conversation; he sways back and forth and then settles, still watchful as a grounded bird poised to take flight.

“this place is…new to me,” he says. such an admission hardly seems worth the breath it is spoken with but, here, every movement he makes is uncharted territory.